Toothless poodle

It's unfortunate that Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants is merely serviceable entertaiment instead of classic. James Wolcott's blog and Vanity Fair column are a delight; his prose is erudite and demotic, worthy of someone who admires Pauline Kael.

Attack Poodles goes after easy targets: the mediacracy whose members publish in the New York Times (Brooks, Dowd), the Washington Post (Krauthammer, Broder), and populate scores of cable talk shows (rattle off the list: Wolf Blitzer, George Will, Cokie Roberts, Fred Barnes, Bill O'Reilly, etc). To whom is this book addressed? All that distinguishes Attack Poodles from the left-wing/right-wing screeds piled on bookstore remaindered tables is Wolcott's prose, which in this book is distressing. Let's see: cliches and facile alliteration (Mickey Kaus "slices and dices" Hillary's "sallow soul"); description worthy of Mickey Spillane paperbacks (Of Max Boot: "He has the soft cheeks of a baby-faced killer and a byline that spells danger."); lazy thinking (he calls Ann Coulter "the Paris Hilton of postmodern politics" after reminding attack poodles that "pop-cult patter dates fast"); and an obtuse reverence for old fellas like Walter Cronkite and Helen Thomas ("an unglamorous reminder of a more civic, idealistic era," ahem). Irreverence and sentimentality are a nauseous mix, even for sallow souls.

Kael and Wolcott's other idol Gore Vidal would have yawned and asked Jimmy for a drink. A pity.